348 Ana/ysis of Scientific Books. 



The success, which the present work has already had, will, 

 we hope, encourage Dr. Ure to bring forth, with all diligence, a 

 work so much wanted at the present moment, as that above- 

 described. From the specimens he has exhibited in the Dic- 

 tionary, we are satisfied that it will contain a faithful expo- 

 sition of the known facts, with useful rules for simplifying 

 chemical practice. 



The Dictionary would have been improved, for occasional 

 consultation, by page numerals, for want of which, there is a 

 difficulty of referring to specified passages, in such extensive 

 dissertations, as his articles Attiiaction, Caloric, Combus- 

 tion, Electricity, Gas, Equivalents Chemical, ^c. The 

 view of what is usually called the atomic theory, which he has 

 given under the last-named article, seems to us the most com- 

 plete and most philosophical hitherto offered to the public, 

 and presents some valuable rules for computing from analysis, 

 the proportional weight, or prime equivalent of the various 

 simple and compound bodies. O. 



ii. The Elements of Chemical Science. Br/ J. Gorham, M.D., 



Member of the American Academy, and Professor of Chemistry 

 in Harvard University, Cambridge. 2 vols. 8vo. Boston, 

 1819 and 1820. 



This is the first original book on Chemistry published in the 

 United States, and merely as such, deserves the notice of our 

 chemical readers ; it contains nothing original either in expe- 

 riment or observation, neither does it profess originality, but it 

 has the merit of perspicuous arrangement and candid narrative. 



The first volume includes a succinct account of the doc- 

 trines of attraction, heat, light, and electricity, of the chemical 

 properties of the supporters of combustion, and of the simple 

 inflammable unmetallic bases, and concludes with a general 

 view of the process of combustion, and of the analogies 

 between the simple substances and some of their compounds, 

 with remarks on some points of chemical theory. The pre- 

 liminary part of this volume is a judicious compilation of facts 

 from the best English works ; but, in the concluding chapters. 

 Dr. Gorham enters upon general views, and becomes more tan- 

 gible to the critic. In his history of combustion, the author 

 has scarcely done justice to Jean Rey who preceded Hooke 

 and Mayow, and whose experiments tended to establish the 

 influence of air in that process, and to lead to views analogous 

 to those subsequently adopted by his eminent successors ; nor 

 has he given as much room to the experiments and speculations 

 of Hooke as they deserve, while he has detailed, with tiresome 

 minuteness, the exploded theory of Lavoisier, and has even 

 condescended to notice and ^transcribe, not, it is true, without 



